THE ARBITER OF ETHICS 237 



sary to wait for the promulgation of the law of evolu- 

 tion before a nexus could be formed between the ma- 

 terial and spiritual aspects of nature. For it seems 

 clear that such a system of ethics must substitute the 

 worship of nature for the worship of God if science 

 is to become the guide to conduct. That is, some prin- 

 ciple of nature, subject only to physical laws, must 

 work toward perfection in man in the ordinary sense 

 of guiding his aspirations toward absolute goodness, 

 and thus supply a check and interference to his actions ; 

 a check which metaphysical systems have always ac- 

 complished by assuming an outside and supernatural 

 force, which is not restricted by natural law. 



On first sight, the biological sciences, with evolu- 

 tion as a guiding principle, offer a promising field for 

 a system of ethics which shall depend on natural law 

 and be positive in that it does not introduce the occult 

 and supernatural. It seemed necessary, during the 

 Victorian age, only to have implicit confidence in evo- 

 lution and to let the machine work out its own destiny, 

 confident that all was well. Thus we have doctrines 

 of humanitarianism and evolution in the poetry of 

 Tennyson who trusts to that " one far-off divine event, 

 to which the whole creation moves." We have the same 

 confidence shown by Wordsworth who sucks his moral- 

 ity from flowers and stones, or by Fiske who writes his 

 moral confession in an essay entitled " Through Na- 

 ture to God." But all is not so simple or even so 



